Tmax Developer. Kodak designed it to push Tmax films, and in my extensive experience with Tmax 3200, it was far and away the best developer for that fast film. When I began using Ilford's Delta 3200, I tried Tmax Developer since it worked so well for Kodak's very similar 3200 film. It worked just as beautifully for Delta 3200 as it did for the Tmax 3200. Here are some examples of the Ilford 3200 in Tmax Developer.
Saw the images before but skipped over your text - agree completely. It works great with Delta 3200.
I posted a few of my results before in another thread on Delta 3200:
http://home.comcast.net/~ragnar93/Temp/Anachrocon1b.jpg
Delta 3200 in T-Max developer, shot at EI 3200, developed per time for 6400:
You guys are ruining my plans to get away from Kodak entirely... Tmax developer hmmm... Erg....
~Stone
The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic
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I'm sure DD-X, which is probably similar, works as well or better. I've just always liked T-Max developer for the T-Max films so I had it. If you're just buying something for this film, I'd go with it or DD-X myself, or possibly Xtol. I would heed the advice for pushing to develop for one stop more than you expose for, however. I think the recommendations are for the least development that will do the job to keep grain from growing too much but I think both Delta 3200 and TMZ look better when given more development.
It is very similar in its working properties.
Wait is DD-X the equivalent developer to Tmax?
I thought there was NO true equivalent?
Well, not really. Both are designed for high speed, and are very good for push processes.
But DDX delivers finer grain (I did side by side comparisons under identical test conditions).
There is one: Tetenal Ultrafin Plus. This developer has an almost identical formular compared to T-Max developer. You cannot distinguish the results of these two developers.
Best regards,
Henning
Stone: apples and oranges.
DDX, TMax RS are fine grain PQ general purpose developers. They are designed to give full emulsion speed, good sharpness and grain. TMax RS was originally developed to get the most out of TMax films (which are finer grained than more traditional films). Later XTOL became another option which still gives good speed but with finer grain. Ilford presumably developed DDX primarily for its tabular Delta films since it is recommended by Ilford for those films. Compared with say D76/ID11, DDX and TMax RS developers will tend to give slightly higher grain and slightly higher speed.
Perceptol is an extra-fine grain developer. It is a D23-variant designed for finer grain (Metol/Sulfite/Sodium Chloride) via lower pH and a high degree of solvent action. In exhange you get reduced sharpness and a speed loss of at least one stop. You can dilute it for slightly more grain and better sharpness but in my testing even at a 1+3 dilution it is best to accept at least 1 stop of lost speed or else you lose the extra fine grain effect and gain virtually nothing else.
Most people tend to favour sharper developers with more speed than Perceptol with tabular films since they are already relatively fine grained to begin with. I would say Perceptol with a fast tabular film like Delta 3200 is an odd match. It's not as though a super fine grain developer is going to make D3200 look fine grained. You'll just get mushier-looking grain. There's only so much you can do to alter a film's inherent image characteristics - and if you do you inevitably make compromises.
Michael
Stone, to a large degree yes fine grain and sharpness (you could call it crispness) are at opposite ends when balancing a developer's characteristics. It gets a little more complicated with more dilute developers where edge effects come into play, but don't worry about that. Just know that generally the finer grain a developer is formulated to produce, the less sharp the edges of the grain will be.
Most general purpose solvent developers like D76/ID11, DDX, XTOL, TMax RS, Ilfosol etc etc are designed to give a good balance of both fine grain and good sharpness, without going too far in either direction. Developers like Rodinal, FX2, Beutler, and Pyro favour sharpness over fine grain. Developers like Microdol/Perceptol favour fine grain over sharpness.
The differences become a little less clear if you alter dilutions, agitation etc. Generally the more you dilute a solvent developer the sharper it will get, with the tradeoff of higher graininess.
What I would say is that from a grain or sharpness perspective you won't have a whole lot to gain or lose by switching from Ilfosol to DDX or TMax. What DDX or TMax RS offer is somewhat higher speed, at least with tabular grained films.
How you use the developer is important and gives you some flexibility with respect to graininess and sharpness. And of course you can also control contrast (and film speed to some extent). So it is more about how you practice using the film/developer combination than switching developers. Many of the differences between similar types of developers are quite small. So I would not consider yourself limited in any way with Ilfosol. I have not used it myself but I'm sure it can do whatever you need it to do.
If you want to learn a little more about the general types of developers, films and how they work together consider buying a copy of The Film Developing Cookbook. It's a pretty good compilation of information from good sources, and is easy to follow. This might help you decide whether you should stick with what you are using or perhaps go in a different direction.
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